NASA gets a go for a heavy lifter/Ares.

[AJ Dual]

Far from a done deal, but this is good news.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/awx/2011/09/14/awx_09_14_2011_p0-369477.xml&headline=White%20House%20Endorses%20NASA%20Heavy-lift%20Plan&channel=space

Putting all the arguments about politics, economics, pork spending, and distribution of system components to every last state in the U.S., private-vs.-public etc., and the inevitable "if it actually ever happens"-factor aside... From a purely technical standpoint of desiring continued U.S. space exploration, and even having a chance at a U.S. flag on the Moon... or dare I even say it, Mars... Having a heavy lift vehicle is a capability we lost with the Saturn launchers, and have been lacking for probably 35 years.

[Northwoods]

Cool.  If the PACCAR job ever goes tango uniform maybe I could get a contract on that program.

[Tallpine]

Cool.  If the PACCAR job ever goes tango uniform maybe I could get a contract on that program.

Does NASA rocket software have to be DO-178B certified     

[AJ Dual]

Does NASA rocket software have to be DO-178B certified     

I don't know. A spaceplane might. 

Although I'm sure that everything NASA or it's contractors do is probably up to a sufficiently stringent, if alternate standard.

I don't even really expect "this decision" to be the project's final form. Although enough has been sunk into Orion/Constellation/Ares that whatever results will bear at least some superficial resemblance.  And I'm sure it's all back-room pork wrangling by members of Congress for whichever contractor has major facilities in their state.

However, what heartens me, is that even in it's own corrupt inefficient way, as long as Constellation or grandson-of-Constellation or whatever they want to call it keeps getting, cancelled, revived, and then kicked further down the road... I figure some iteration of the system and family of systems will get far enough that it'll get past that magical point of no return and the funding to finish and use it will be politically possible. 

Now I'm certain that Micro could come up with any number of more fully privatized alternatives that are much more politically and economically efficient.

And birdman probably has ideas that are more technically streamlined, effective, or efficient.

However, in terms of manned space flight, and "grand science" that will require heavy-lift boosters, (the core capability we've been lacking since the end of Apollo/Saturn) the main point to me is that there's still life and activity there. Something is getting done. Even if it's not exactly the right something.

[MicroBalrog]

Help me here. With the moon travel: what are the technical differences between the rockets that take the moon landers to the moon and the regular heavy lifters?

Do I understand correctly that a heavy lifter that takes a 'large' package to orbit can take also a 'small' [I do not know the difference in size] package to the Moon?

Would it be possible with current lifters [either American, European, or Russian] to send some kind of rovers/robot landers to the moon?

[AJ Dual]

Help me here. With the moon travel: what are the technical differences between the rockets that take the moon landers to the moon and the regular heavy lifters?

Do I understand correctly that a heavy lifter that takes a 'large' package to orbit can take also a 'small' [I do not know the difference in size] package to the Moon?

Would it be possible with current lifters [either American, European, or Russian] to send some kind of rovers/robot landers to the moon?

Well... what passes as our current "regular" heavy lifters aren't all that heavy. At least as compared to a Saturn V or Ares type.

The shuttle typical payload was 22000 Kg to LEO

Titan 4 variants (the ones with the two side boosters, and the fatter top stage, that did missions like some of the larger Mars stuff like Viking, and the Cassini Saturn orbiter) did just a bit under 18,000 Kg to LEO.

Atlas V types. Similar to Titan 4. About 18,000 Kg to LEO.

Saturn C-5's as used in Apollo could carry roughly double what the Shuttle could 41,000 Kg to LEO.

The Ares V was supposed to have a payload capacity of 188,000 Kg to LEO.

So the payload capacity to LEO is everything needed to go further, fuel to the moon and back, Mars and back. Water, O2, consumables... everything. Even if you're using nuclear propulsion, or nuclear-electri propulsion, you still need a working fluid for the mass reaction of some sort.

So an Ares V or son-of-Ares or whatever it is that got re-approved in my article above, could generally do in one launch what would take the shuttle 9 missions to accomplish. And consider that all the Shuttles combined only really had 135 flights for their entire service history, you start to see what heavy lift really means.

And to the part in bold, yes, generally speaking. I don't have any good numbers for trans-lunar insertion, but the difference between a LEO mission and one just to GEO, when rating the same system, is generally just 1/3rd to 1/5th of it's LEO capability. The heavy lift booster always pretty much lifts the same weight to LEO. However much/most of it is taken up by the final stage LEO to GEO booster and it's fuel. I'm sure it's similar, or even worse when it's the Moon, or for intra-solar system burns to Venus, Mars, the belt, Jupiter etc.

Add in man-rated life support, oxygen, food, water, consumables, a rover, a lander, a return stage... the mass penalties go up crazy-fast, as compared to some scientific, .mil, or communications satellite or probe that will only ever just float in zero-G for the rest of it's service life, and is never coming back.

I think rovers to the Moon with current boosters should be completely do-able. Soft landers like the US Surveyor, sample return like the Soviet Luna 14 and the Russian Lunakhod rover back in the 60's early 70's were all quite successful.

[birdman]

Saturn V was closer to 120,000kg to LEO, and I thought aresV was Closer to 70,000.  The SLS heavy peaked out at 130,000.   As a comparison, Falcon-9 heavy would be 50,000+, (more than sufficient) and would do it at a far cheaper price (per kg).  When I did heavy lift LV analysis for boeing (and for the air force), beyond about 40-50,000kg, it's diminishing returns, it's better to launch 3 50,000kg payloads than one 150,000kg payload, both from a reliability and cost perspective.  As the existing engine, design, and launch infrastructure can easily support the lower range, and the larger ones would require costly new infrastructure, I think the ultra-heavy lift (>100,000kg) is only useful for stunts (single launch moon missions, etc) than any long-term useful concepts.  Considering most of the mass you launch is fuel, which you can package into many small, a few medium, or one big huge tank(s), you need to pick the cheapest launch---provided you can assemble on orbit.

Originally, Von Braun wanted Apollo to be multiple launch, as it would leave behind the capability to do arbitrarily large missions of real utility...but since Apollo was a stunt, it was done the (near-term) cheaper way of a single launch...which meant the re-investment for anything in the future was total--no re-use.

I think SLS is dumb.  Bring on the cheaper "heavy" lift, not government only ultra-heavy.

[AJ Dual]

Saturn V was closer to 120,000kg to LEO, and I thought aresV was Closer to 70,000.  The SLS heavy peaked out at 130,000.   As a comparison, Falcon-9 heavy would be 50,000+, (more than sufficient) and would do it at a far cheaper price (per kg).  When I did heavy lift LV analysis for boeing (and for the air force), beyond about 40-50,000kg, it's diminishing returns, it's better to launch 3 50,000kg payloads than one 150,000kg payload, both from a reliability and cost perspective.  As the existing engine, design, and launch infrastructure can easily support the lower range, and the larger ones would require costly new infrastructure, I think the ultra-heavy lift (>100,000kg) is only useful for stunts (single launch moon missions, etc) than any long-term useful concepts.  Considering most of the mass you launch is fuel, which you can package into many small, a few medium, or one big huge tank(s), you need to pick the cheapest launch---provided you can assemble on orbit.

Originally, Von Braun wanted Apollo to be multiple launch, as it would leave behind the capability to do arbitrarily large missions of real utility...but since Apollo was a stunt, it was done the (near-term) cheaper way of a single launch...which meant the re-investment for anything in the future was total--no re-use.

I think SLS is dumb.  Bring on the cheaper "heavy" lift, not government only ultra-heavy.

I agree with much of that. Although Saturn had it's I, II, and III-B variants that were much smaller and had the multiple launch abilities.

I think ultra-heavy has it's place. I think people bandy about "just assemble it in orbit" a bit too freely. Docking an extra module, and moving some stuff around with 'the arm'  is one thing, but IMO, most realistic Mars mission scenarios will need as much mass as the International Space Station stands now. Unless you want Russian "We'll just torture the astronaut for 2.5 years, because it's worth it..." type of missions. Especially when high mass nuclear power components get thrown in even when "low mass" for space purposes, it's still "high mass" as compared to most space hardware.

And while I'm no engineer, I have a gut feeling that heavy lift gives you some potential for higher reliability when larger system components can all be integrated, and assembled on the ground in a shirtsleeve environment, and while it has a higher level of risk with less launch redundancy, it also can create lower risk vehicles with fewer connections, critical junctions, fewer moving parts etc. (and these multi-module connections and systems may also mean mass-penalty in flight) I think heavy lift also gives better odds for mission success if other support technologies like life support recycling don't pan out as well as they'd need to for things like water and O2 for the crew. Even if the consumables can be ferried up in multiple launches, can the tanks and containers?

And it occurred to me that for every technology that you can leverage to squeeze more capability into a medium launcher, like modular construction, or inflatables, it scales up and then gives you even more capability in a heavy launcher.

And when I think about things like aggressive radiation shielding schemes, (electromagnetic, thick hulls, or a "storm shelter" in big water tanks), and rotational gravity, these also might be well served by heavy lift.

I'm not totally happy with SLS either, but I think my main point is that at least something keeps getting kicked around, and some irons are in the fire. Even if it's the wrong stuff, it's something.

[birdman]

I agree, heavy lift is very useful, but having gone through the designs, beyond about 50-60,000kg, (ultra-heavy lift) the benefits of larger launches (fewer, but larger, "chunks") are negated by the risks (one launch goes bad, and you lose more--meaning you need more spares of larger portions), and the additional structural mass needed to simply transport the payload--more supports inside the fairing to get all the stuff safely to orbit--launches aren't exactly gentle.

As for costs, it's the "standing army" and LACK of a true many-unit learning curve that cripples large vehicles (and why upstarts like spaceX can launch cheap)--combine this with the infrastructure aspects, and the "easier to integrate small fully assembled parts" instead of attempting to fully integrate as much as possible before launch that makes the "heavy" better than the "ultra heavy". What we found was as long as it is more than one launch, it was cheaper to do 4 than 2...ironically. 

Even for nuclear systems, the truly heavy stuff isn't the components, it's the easily modularized parts you actually WANT (for reliability) to be smaller, more easily replaced units--like solar arrays, radiators, fuel tanks, hab modules, etc.  Launching lots more of those in fewer launches ends up (total system cost) being more expensive and riskier.  Take iridium, while they could have launched all the birds on a fewer number of protons, they split them up across many LV's (including proton) to mitigate risk and lower total cost.

Ultra-heavy is big-government launch--and a jobs program to support one launch per year, with only one purpose, instead of the heavies, which have actual real economic benefits (dual launch of the larger current gen and early next gen GEO birds).

I hate to say "trust me" but the details are more than I can really type in this kind of forum.

[MicroBalrog]

I think rovers to the Moon with current boosters should be completely do-able. Soft landers like the US Surveyor, sample return like the Soviet Luna 14 and the Russian Lunakhod rover back in the 60's early 70's were all quite successful.

Okay.

Help me here.

1. Why isn't there a routine program of launching exploratory landers to the moon?

2. Would it be possible to launch a series of robots (and perhaps supplies) to the moon over X years, have the robots prepare a landing spot, etc, and then launch a mission with people?

Consider: Manned spacecraft are notoriously inefficient - in that you need a lot of volume and weight to carry an astronaut in conditions that are sort of comfortable for him, as well life support and other supplies. But robots require almost no space beyond the space the robot itself takes up, and no life support at all.

[AJ Dual]

Okay.

Help me here.

1. Why isn't there a routine program of launching exploratory landers to the moon?

2. Would it be possible to launch a series of robots (and perhaps supplies) to the moon over X years, have the robots prepare a landing spot, etc, and then launch a mission with people?

Consider: Manned spacecraft are notoriously inefficient - in that you need a lot of volume and weight to carry an astronaut in conditions that are sort of comfortable for him, as well life support and other supplies. But robots require almost no space beyond the space the robot itself takes up, and no life support at all.

1. I'm not sure. To some degree, the moon's not all that interesting. Just dead rock in vacuum. And lots of things can be done (like look for frost/water) from a polar lunar orbit, which can cover the whole moon. So perhaps that's why the money's been put there. JAXA has an orbiter that has an HDTV camera on it, and they have some really amazing footage of nothing but the moon going by as it orbits. Really makes it "a real place" to look at.

I do know there's been some private initiatives to operate a rover on the moon for awhile now. Although I think beyond the stunt-factor, there's not much it could do.

2. Many of the proposed Mars mission profiles have that sort of thing. Pre-positioned cargo/fuel ships in orbit around Mars, and fully stocked, but un-crewed return landers on the surface etc. that are sent on slower lower energy trajectories ahead of time. I think there's been some lunar proposals to land lots of connected modules, and have the robotic bulldozers cover them in lunar regolith to give them solar storm shielding. And only sending astronauts once it's reached a certain level of completion.

I suppose that robotic bulldozers could level a landing field in some of the more difficult terrain that the moon offers, but might be the kind of place we want a base.

There's also a host of schemes proposed for sifting solar Helium 3 out of the surface regolith and dust that use robotic tractors etc.

Up in bold, I agree with. Given time and ever improving tech, there may not be a lot, besides provide real eyeballs and intuition, like "Grab that mars rock, might be a fossil!" etc. that machines couldn't do. Some places, like the moons of Jupiter will probably be the domain of robots for a long, long... time, due to the intense radiation it's magnetic field traps.

IMO, aside from science info that forces decisions where light-lag times are unacceptable, the only real reason to put humans up there is the long-term goal of getting some of Homo Sapiens eggs out of Earth's rather fragile basket.

Although if humanity ever really does get off of Earth on a large scale, I think that post-human issues will need to come into play to make it possible, for the same reasons robots are so well suited to space exploration. Although that's a conversation you and I have often enough, the rest of the board is sick of it. 

[KD5NRH]

2. Many of the proposed Mars mission profiles have that sort of thing. Pre-positioned cargo/fuel ships in orbit around Mars, and fully stocked, but un-crewed return landers on the surface etc. that are sent on slower lower energy trajectories ahead of time.

How fuel-efficient would it be to meet multiple items in LEO?  I know shuttles frequently hooked up with single orbiting items, but what about picking up several prelaunched units like fuel tanks and/or solid-fuel boosters in LEO then using those to go farther?  Would this end up burning more fuel than it's worth to chase down all the items?

Theoretically, even if it's that difficult to gather them up, they could be launched to meet up on their own with a remote-controlled "docking" (more like tethering, since they would just need to be held in one area rather than firmly and precisely connected) capability so the manned expedition just has to meet up with one clump of stuff.

[drewtam]

Caterpillar has been playing with NASA and the university engineering efforts for such a Mars mission. Cat also uses that tech as part of the on going industry effort to remove operators from (terrestrial) mining completely.

With one of those heavy lifters, they could get 1 D6T machine into LEO (~47,000lbs operating weight).
The ultra heavy lifter could get 1 of the mining size tractors (D9 or D10).

But as good as a ripper on one of those is, one wouldn't want to rely upon that for all the rock clearing. Probably want a small rock drill for blasting. If a custom job is done, could probably make it convertible to a typical excavator depending on the need.
Hmmm... maybe tractor with a rock drill / excavator boom configurable attachment on the back. It would be quite the abomination, but a pretty versatile tool for this transportation limited scenario.

[birdman]

How fuel-efficient would it be to meet multiple items in LEO?  I know shuttles frequently hooked up with single orbiting items, but what about picking up several prelaunched units like fuel tanks and/or solid-fuel boosters in LEO then using those to go farther?  Would this end up burning more fuel than it's worth to chase down all the items?

Theoretically, even if it's that difficult to gather them up, they could be launched to meet up on their own with a remote-controlled "docking" (more like tethering, since they would just need to be held in one area rather than firmly and precisely connected) capability so the manned expedition just has to meet up with one clump of stuff.

"chase down" in orbit (provided they are all launched into similar altitude and inclination, which you would do anyway) requires very little fuel.

And we have already done autonomous docking, both of robot craft with manned craft (all of the supply missions to ISS) and robot to robot with no human intervention .

[Tallpine]

Our space program has blown the wad on non-useful stunts:  first the "race to the moon" and second the "shuttle" that never was truly operational because it cost more to refit for each flight than a throwaway rocket. :(

After 50+ years, we should have had one or more operational space bases in orbit, shuttles that could fly back and forth almost at a moment's notice, and spaceships from the orbiting bases to the moon or ever Mars and/or the asteroids.

By now, getting to the moon shouldn't be much more trouble than crossing the Pacific in the 1930s.

Instead, we have a few museum pieces sitting around on the ground 

[birdman]

Tall pine, you are right, with one caveat, it's notthe refit recurring cost (which is actually quite low compared to the other costs) that is the problem with the shuttle, it's the yearly infrastructure and personnel cost--when that is amortized over only 3-5 flights a year, instead of 10-20, it renders the shuttle too expensive...which dries up the market (kind of like the non-recurring costs of RDTE that result in procurement of aircraft being reduced--see my previous posts on that topic).  The problem was, the market wasn't there at that beginning (other than non-private missions), so the costs ended up being higher, which further reduced commercial interest.  Now, the commercial market is growing (and has been, just not as fast as futurists believed  over the past 50 years), and will reach a point where it coukdsupport a reusuable system...I would say 2020-2030 timeframe (when the market is sufficient to allow for economic operation of a reusable that would compete with current low cost expendables).  The shuttle was just too early, and too reliant on government missions to make it's flight count.  With the post cold war defense and intel drawdown, combined with the challenger and Columbia accidents causing delays, the market shifted to smaller, lower cost systems.  That shift made the per flight price too high.

There are other examples of too-early concepts in space systems (iridium and teledesic for example, which would have been far more profitable and/or gotten off the ground had they started 10 years later).

That being said, the companies interested in long term profitability of launches (spaceX for example) do have long term plans for reusable systems or derivatives as they do recognize the above.

It's similar in a way to installation of fiber backbone connections..,a huge amount of fiber was installed in the late 90's and early 2000's, anticipating a huge and rapid rise in bandwidth needs...due to the .com crunch and subsequent 2007/8 crisis, the need was slowed, prices collapsed, and many investments lost severly, and there was a bandwidth glut...that low cost bandwidth actually did lead to a "field of dreams" result (if you build it, the demand will appear), and it did (cloud apps, mobile backhaul, streaming media), and those apps now are causing a bandwidth crunch (and higher prices, and more profits for those who bought the bankrupt lines for pennies on the dollar)...now the high demand and associated prices (which are actually the market correct prices) are motivating further installations.

Space is similar in a way, except the demand rise is much slower, and the leave-behind infrastructure that can be used limited, so the collapse/reuse/demand drive doesn't occur, meaning it's the long term trend that is needed to create the market. 

I believe as the mobile market continues to expand, and spectrum becomes more scarce, and mobility needs rise (more remote areas) the LEO comms market will continue to expand, and that will encourage more space demand, but it is years out.  Which is why launch companies are working toward profitability at current demand, not predicted demand, and leveraging that success toward being able to expand into high demand areas when it materializes with reusables (spaceX).  Ironically, that company, for being founded by an internet guy, has been the most capable of avoiding an Internet or computer-like business strategy (assume exponential demand growth).

In any case, I do even more firmly believe that we will get there (increased space access, etc) eventually, in 10-30 years (depending entirely on how our politics either hastens a collapse, or corrects the current path and encourages true economic growth).  1990-2020 I believe will be looked back at as the space dark ages, where external influences (politics, etc) set back technological development and we had to rebuild from a point more similar to a time 20 years before the dark ages, than simply continuing forward.  (as an example, ares uses a derivativeof the J-2 engine, which was the Saturn-v 2nd and 3rd stage engine, instead of more modern engines...due to a risk averse design).   True progress requires risk, governments, by definition are risk averse, while correspondingly entreprenuership also rewards and requires calculated risk...that's why private demand and private supply will be the future.

[Tallpine]

My understanding was that they couldn't launch more than 3-5 per year because of technical issues, not lack of market demand.

Sometime after the Challenger loss, I read that they didn't have enough of some components (onboard computers, avionics...) for all 5 (at that time) shuttles and so they were spending huge amounts of man-hours robbing parts from Peter in order to fly Paul.  :(

[birdman]

My understanding was that they couldn't launch more than 3-5 per year because of technical issues, not lack of market demand.

Sometime after the Challenger loss, I read that they didn't have enough of some components (onboard computers, avionics...) for all 5 (at that time) shuttles and so they were spending huge amounts of man-hours robbing parts from Peter in order to fly Paul.  :(

Kind of.

The shortest same craft flight to flight cycle was about 2 months pre challenger accident, and about 4 months afterwards (both of which happened more than once) and the most in a single year was 8 (I think), and that was post challenger and pre endeavor (only 3 active shuttles).
Not including the ~4 year gap when we flew none, (due to the accidents), the program flew 130+ missions over 26 years, (an average of 5+ a year) with an average of 3 active shuttles.  Given the latter (2 a year flown per shuttle) and the former (3-6 per year per shuttle possible), a fleet of 5 would have been able to support at least 10, and possibly 30 missions per year.

Given that disparity of a factor of 2-6 actually flown and 1.25-4 peak to possible, I would have to conclude the rate was limited by lack of missions...which bears out, any mission delays due to launch availability were caused by either the accidents, or by higher priority payloads bumping slots. 

The theoretical going rate for the shuttle program was 5-8 billion a year, or an average of 1 billion a launch.  Since the variability die to actual rate was minimal, one could assume a reasonable split of $200million recurring per launch, and $4-6 billion of steady-state cost per year.  If one launched 30 missions a year, the resulting cost would be $325-400million a launch, or $5-7k/lb, which would have been competitive with most of the 60+klb class heavy litters.  Throw in any learning curve, and it's very competitive.

As for the component availability, that was primarily due to NASA not having the funds (and risk aversion in staying with what is proven) to do systematic upgrades of flight hardware, not any intrinsic engineering issues...most of those parts were avionics related, and given even the long (5-10year) mil spec avionics product cycle, resulted in orphan hardware that had to be scavenged from the orbiters undergoing overhaul to support those not yet overhauled.  Again, something that could have been more readily dealt with had the market been there to support the higher flight rate.